


i think i made you up inside my head

by majorrager



Category: Life Is Strange (Video Game)
Genre: Alternate Timelines, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Assisted Suicide, F/F, Intimacy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-07-31
Updated: 2015-07-31
Packaged: 2018-04-11 23:25:45
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,089
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4456538
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/majorrager/pseuds/majorrager
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Before this day is through, Max knows that she will have to stare into William's last photo again and leave the world that she has created here. She will grip that photo until she distorts the colors, makes them all bleed into one another and drain away into the ether. </p><p>(In the alternate timeline, Max grants Chloe's other wish.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	i think i made you up inside my head

**Author's Note:**

> I told myself I would wait to write Life is Strange fanfiction until the series concluded just so that I could have a complete understanding of the overarching plot... and then episode 4 happened.
> 
> Chloe in the alternate timeline was so fascinating to me, and the whole sequence was really depressing. I wanted to explore that a little more in an intimate context, so I kind of just purged all of my thoughts and feelings with this.

Chloe's face lights up as Max places the photo album on her lap and spreads it open. That's the first thing she notices — it feels like the only thing — and for a second, she stares, and then she smiles, too. She gives the corner of the book a nudge so that Chloe can see it better.  
  
"Is that okay?" she asks softly, edging her chair closer.  
  
"Perfect," Chloe breathes.  
  
The pages are smooth, white, and glossy. Each photo is pressed neatly into a perfect grid, two on each page. Max wonders if Chloe was the one to put it together, before, when she could still use her hands. But then, she thinks, would Chloe have wanted to? Would she have needed this bound and organized reminder of _before_ to look at? It's with a twinge of sadness that Max realizes that Joyce was probably the one to carefully arrange these photographs, each one in chronological order, painting a gradient of memories for Chloe to relive. It was probably Joyce or William who turned these pages for Chloe, who sat by her bedside and carefully studied each one with her. Who else would?  
  
"Oh my god," Chloe coos at the first photo, "look how little we are there! We look like toys!"  
  
Max stares down at it, then back up at Chloe. "I remember that day by the lighthouse."  
  
They _do_ look little. It's strange, looking at the photo. It's a memory that exists both in this timeline and in the one Max left behind— something that happened long before William died. An untouchable memory. Unchangeable. Not that Max would want to.  
  
It's a photo of herself and Chloe, maybe ten or eleven years old. They're teetering by the cliff, hands clasped together. Chloe's leaning off into it, the sun at her back, and Max's heels are dug into the ground, anchoring her there. William had told the two of them to stop playing around, but neither of them had wanted to. Chloe had nearly fallen right over the side just after the photo had been taken. William had been pale with what they'd both thought was anger, but later realized was fear.  
  
"My dad was _pissed_ at us," Chloe says, remembering the incident, as well. "He actually tried to give us a time-out!"  
  
A huff of laughter escapes her. "And you laughed at him." Max could hear her childish voice in her head even now; time had not dulled the memory. _Chill out, Dad!_ "My dad would have banished me."  
  
She reaches out for the album again, peeling the page back. The next page has four perfectly aligned photos, as well. Chloe's gaze immediately darts to one in particular, like she expected it to be there. Max considers that she probably did.  
  
"Whoa, awesome picture. We look so badass in our pirate gear."  
  
It's not hard to tell which picture Chloe is talking about. The photo at the top left is of the two of them dressed extravagantly for one Halloween. Chloe's long hair is strung with blue beads running down like a waterfall over one shoulder. It makes something inside of Max ache to look at her. She looks a lot like a tiny Rachel Amber in this photo, honey-colored hair with a flash of electric blue, but there are beads where Rachel had worn a feather. Max, standing next to her, looks absurd in an oversized eye patch and long, trailing scarf. Her grin is wide in the photo, whereas Chloe looks slightly petulant, as if she is doing William a favor by posing, and would much rather already be pursuing candy door to door.  
  
The girls in the photograph are so young and so sweet. They don't have distance, or missing friends, or paralyzation, or the end of the world to worry about. Max wants to crawl inside of the photo and live in it forever, enduring that same happy moment over and over again for the rest of her life. The worst part is that she knows she _can_. She could peel the photo off of the page and stare beyond it and _be_ there. She's sure she could. But she won't.  
  
Her throat feels dry, suddenly. She tears her gaze away from the page. "We should have taken over Arcadia Bay when we had the chance," she says to Chloe's lap.  
  
_There were a lot of things I should have done,_ she thinks, _and didn't._  
  
Maybe Chloe hears something strange in her voice, because her head turns, her wan face softening. "There's still time for you."  
  
Max doesn't know what to say. Nothing comes to her. She can't look Chloe in the eyes, can't see into her pain. But she can't keep looking at the Chloe in the photograph, either, the one who's never seen any pain. There is a knot in her throat. _Yes,_ she could say. _There's time for me. There can be time for you, too. You don't even know it._  
  
Instead, with slightly shaky fingers, she turns another page. The photo on the next page gives her a start. It's the two of them with their faces pressed close together, beaming into the camera. It's the last photo William ever took... Or at least it _had_ been.  
  
"Oh, man!" Chloe enthuses. "There we are making pancakes! I love that shot of us."  
  
This is the photo Max had used to change Chloe's life. To intervene in the moment that had been the root of all of her self-loathing. She'd wanted to gift Chloe with happiness. She'd wanted to take her hurt and her pain away.  
  
But it had been an equivalent exchange, and Max had not read the terms of the sale. Chloe's pain had endured in a way that she could not comprehend. She looks at her friend lying supine in bed, a tube trailing out of her throat, and thinks _I did this to you._  
  
"It's hard to believe my dad took that picture only five years ago," Chloe murmurs.  
  
Max makes herself smile. "Literally seems like yesterday."  
  
The happiness suddenly drains out of Chloe's voice. "I wish it was."  
  
Max stares down at the photo. "Me, too."  
  
She can go back. She's sure she can do it if she concentrates hard enough. She can relive it all for a third time and condemn William permanently. It will hurt Chloe all over again. It will grant her her freedom, her autonomy, but it will hurt her.  
  
_This photo... Maybe I could..._  
  
She doesn't know what to do.  
  
Chloe's voice drags her out of it. "Listen, Max. My respiratory system is failing, and... and it's only getting worse. I've heard the doctors talking about it when they thought I was zonked out. So I know I'm just putting off the inevitable while my parents suffer along... and I will, too. This isn't how I want things to end."  
  
_Shit_. There's no way she's talking about what Max thinks she's talking about. This information, supplemented by what she'd learned from Joyce, is almost too much to handle. Chloe isn't supposed to know about this. Not yet. She's not supposed to know how bad it is. She's not supposed to be talking about _dying_. She's eighteen years old. It's not supposed to be like this.  
  
"What? What are you saying?" Her voice sounds small and afraid. That's how she feels, too.  
  
"I'm saying that being with you again has been so special. I just wanted to feel like when we were kids running around Arcadia Bay... and everything was possible."  
  
It's somewhere around the middle, at the word 'special', that the tears start, flooding up hot in her eyes and making it very hard to discern any of Chloe's features. She shakes her head in disbelief, unable to comprehend what Chloe is saying, where she's going with this. She wants to reach out and seal her fingers over her lips and forbid her from saying any more. Instead, she feels frozen in time.  
  
"And you made me feel that way today," Chloe continues, even though her eyes are shining, too. "I want this time with you to be my last memory. Do you understand?"  
  
Her gaze is so heavy, so serious, and it's too much, it's _too much_ , and Max recoils. She thinks of the Chloe she knows— wild, free Chloe, rebellious Chloe, angry Chloe, the one she left behind, wanting to give her a better life. She thinks about how she never had the right to do that. She thinks of _this_ Chloe, how lost she is. Max feels lost, too.  
  
"Yes, I do." That's the worst part: she understands.  
  
"All you have to do is crank the IV up to eleven."  
  
Max looks at her helplessly. Chloe's pain is so palpable that it's hard _not_ to say yes, because she obviously wants this so badly. She shakes her head, mute, and then rocks back into her chair. This isn't her decision to make. She can't keep making choices for Chloe, even though Chloe _wants this_ , wants it so bad that Max can _feel_ it.  
  
For what feels like an hour they sit there, staring at one another, and Max wonders, faintly, if she's inadvertently frozen time, if she's locked herself into this singular moment of pain so that she doesn't ever have to say _yes_ or _no_.  
  
But the moment ends. It ends when Chloe says, "You won't do it. You said you'd always be there for me." Her tone is soft and calm and careful. Like she had been expecting Max's answer.  
  
Max agonizes, not wanting Chloe to conflate her promise with her unwillingness here. "I can't," she says, biting back a sob. "I can't _do_ that, Chloe. I can't. You don't understand. I can't keep— not with you—"  
  
Chloe closes her eyes and leans back into the pillow. The album on her lap slides off and thuds to the floor. Max looks at it, but she doesn't move to pick it up. The photo of herself and Chloe covered in flour stares back at her. The tears roll down her cheeks and soak into her preppy white jeans.  
  
"When the accident first happened," Chloe says suddenly, her eyes still closed, "I thought something was really wrong, Max. Not just with my body. I thought, _This can't be happening to me_. You'd think, um— you'd think that everyone who's had something shitty like this happen to them probably thinks that... I mean, nobody starts their day thinking it's going to be the worst one of their life."  
  
Rubbing her palms into her eyes to stop the tears, Max strains to listen. She's trembling slightly, fearful that Chloe will ask her, again, to help her die.  
  
But that's not where Chloe leads her train of thought. "It feels like I've been living in a dream since it happened. Like... like it's not just that I wish it never happened. It feels like it _shouldn't_ have happened. I feel like I'm living someone else's life."  
  
_You are,_ Max wants to say. _You are, Chloe. I'm sorry, I'm so, so sorry._  
  
"What if you'd never left, Max? Would I be like this? Would you still be my friend? Maybe we would've grown apart. I mean... I mean, look at you." Chloe's voice is growing fainter, raspier. Her eyes are still closed. "You've moved on, and I'm just... here. Chasing something I'm never going to get back. And I've spent so much time in this bed... in that wheelchair... Dreaming about you. Loving this memory of you."  
  
Max's hands slide under the blankets. She feels around until her fingertips encounter Chloe's, and then she tugs her arm free, clasps her hand tight, and tries not to weep. She knows that Chloe can't feel what she's doing, but maybe she hears or senses the blanket shifting, because she opens her eyes, looks down at their connected hands, and smiles.  
  
"You're an art school hipster chick, right? You definitely know Sylvia Plath," says Chloe.  
  
It takes a heartbeat or two for Max to catch herself up to this seemingly unrelated thought. "What?" she says, thickly swallowing the knot in her throat. "Um—" She takes a wavering breath. "Yeah, um, yeah. I know her."  
  
"'I think I made you up inside my head'..."  
  
Max can't recall much of the rest of the poem Chloe is reciting, but she knows it, and she drags Chloe's hand up to her lips and presses it there like a rosary. "Chloe..."  
  
Chloe's head turns towards her. "I won't ask you to put me to sleep again. You can do something else for me, Max."  
  
"Anything," Max says, mumbling it against Chloe's knuckles. "Anything but that."  
  
"Kiss me," Chloe says.  
  
Max goes still, staring at her. Her heart feels weak and stuttering in her chest, and her grip on Chloe's hand slackens. Perhaps Chloe takes this as rejection, because a slightly pained look flashes across her face, and her chin dips, nearly touching her collarbone.  
  
"I've never," Chloe starts, stammering, "never— uh— not before the accident, I've never..."  
  
She doesn't have to continue; Max doesn't want her to. There is something heartrending about the idea that Chloe's never been kissed before, that she's worried about never getting to experience it. Max is more than ready to give Chloe what she is asking for; after giving her the literal world, this is nothing.  
  
"No," chokes Max abruptly. "I _want_ to kiss you, Chloe. Of course I— yeah, I—"  
  
She wants to tell Chloe that she's kissed her once before, that they were upstairs, in the room that's now a void, that they were standing in the morning light reeking of chlorine when Chloe dared her to do it that first time. She wants to tell Chloe that she hadn't hesitated at all, that instinct made her reach out and grip her by the shoulders and seal their lips together before Chloe had pulled away in shock, leaving Max's hands lingering in the air between them, wanting more. She wants to tell Chloe that her flustered reaction had looked beautiful on her, the blush on her cheeks bright under her sheet of blue hair. She wants to tell her that this isn't the first time.  
  
But it _is_. It _is_ the first time, at least for this Chloe, and Max nods, and swallows, and leans in towards the bed. She lifts herself from the chair, enough to be able to press a knee to the mattress so that she can meet her mouth.  
  
Chloe's lips are soft and still. There is no pulling back this time, no exclamation of shock; with some sadness, Max realizes that Chloe couldn't pull back even if she wanted to. That's what makes her ease away after only a few seconds. She doesn't pull back very far, staying close enough for their lips to brush, their noses colliding. Her voice is barely audible as she whispers, "Are you okay?"  
  
"Yeah," says Chloe, but she sounds like she's going to cry. Max reaches up to cup her face in her hands, knowing that Chloe can feel it. Chloe responds with a warm murmur, tilting her cheek into one of Max's palms. "Climb up here with me."  
  
Max does so very carefully. She is cautious to avoid placing any weight on Chloe's body, uncertain of her frailty. She's small enough to fit between Chloe and the railing, and she does, wrapping her arms around Chloe's shoulders and pressing her face into her neck. Her nose brushes the medical tape holding the tube coming out of Chloe's throat in place. She can hear the slow rattle of Chloe's breath whistling in her chest. Max's mind swells with sorrow and grief and guilt. She wants to take Chloe's pain away, but at what cost? All the time in the world couldn't set things right. Not after Max has ruined things so egregiously. Suddenly, it's hard to take a breath, and her head hurts— sharp, stabbing pain not unlike the sensation that spikes through her when she pushes her powers too hard.  
  
"I love you, Chloe," she sobs. "I'm sorry."  
  
Chloe responds in a serene manner. "I love you too, Max," she says, as if it's not the first time she's said it, like it's something she's said every day of her life. She turns her head, and Max feels her dry mouth on her forehead, her lips moving silently against it.  
  
Willing herself to stop weeping, Max tips her chin up, breaking Chloe's lips away from her forehead. She meets them with her own instead. Chloe sighs into her mouth, dreamlike, and parts her lips. The kiss stays chaste, mostly because Max is almost as inexperienced as Chloe, and she doesn't know what to do, really. Her heart is pounding hard, making her dizzy, like she's floating on the same morphine-induced high that Chloe is. "Chloe," she rasps, swallowing.  
  
"I wish," says Chloe, pulling back, "I wish I could touch you."  
  
Max almost says _It's okay if you can't,_ but she knows that it's not about her at all. It's about Chloe, about the things she won't ever get to do again of her own volition. She doesn't want to dismiss that, doesn't want to undermine Chloe's ache for autonomy. So she just nods, reaching for her hand again. "You can," she says, her voice wavering, because she doesn't know if this is the right thing to do, or if Chloe will like it. "You can, Chloe." She presses Chloe's hand to her chest, right in the center of her sternum, and clutches it there.  
  
Chloe smiles, staring at her hand. "I guess you're right," she says. "It's almost the same."  
  
Max wonders what it's like to look down at your own body and not be able to feel what's happening to it. But then, she thinks, the whole week has felt a lot like an out-of-body experience, so maybe she knows what it's like more than she thinks. She squeezes Chloe's hand. "Yeah," she says. "It _is_ , Chloe. We're touching now."  
  
Their eyes meet, and the gaze holds a little longer than Max is used to. Chloe doesn't blink. When she speaks, her tone is heavy. "Then help me touch you."  
  
It's strange, how a request like this might have made her hesitate, embarrassed, if it had come from the Chloe she'd left behind. But from the pale, broken girl in the bed with her, it feels like something she's been waiting to hear since the beginning. Max nods, gripping Chloe's hand tighter, and she sits up to carefully slide a leg over Chloe's lap. She puts her weight back into her haunches, not wanting to sit on her, and stares down at Chloe, who in turn stares at her own hand in Max's, utterly transfixed, focused entirely on seeing what she cannot feel as Max carefully drags her hand lower, until it's at the hem of her shirt. She wants Chloe to see her touching her skin, wants Chloe to know that there are no barriers, even if she can't feel a thing.  
  
But _Max_ can feel it, and Chloe's hand clasped in hers feels so strange on the bare skin of her stomach as she slides it beneath her shirt. Nobody has ever touched her like this before, and she knows that this is not how it usually goes. She knows that if this were the other Chloe — and she won't lie to herself, she's imagined it before — then she would be all groping fingers and laughter, maybe a little too rough, definitely clumsy. They'd be batting their hands at one another, trading touches, cracking jokes when one of them inevitably did something completely incorrectly. It'd be fun and crazy and a little surreal, just like everything else she's ever experienced with Chloe. It would be... completely different from what is happening now. She aches for that version of Chloe, wishes she could grant her freedom to the softer, gentler Chloe she's straddling now.  
  
"I can't see," says Chloe, easing Max out of her thoughts. "Your shirt—"  
  
Max looks down. Surprise bubbles up inside of her, which comes out as nervous laughter. With her hand buried in her shirt, Chloe can't see what's happening, and if she can't see, then, Max realizes, what she is doing here is ineffective. She doesn't let herself feel self-conscious or reluctant as she pulls back for a moment to shrug off her cardigan. There is only a slight pause before she reaches for her shirt and peels it off, dropping it over the side of the bed. "Better?" she warbles, not quite able to meet Chloe's eyes as she reaches out for her hand again.  
  
"Yeah." Chloe's smile widens— and it's almost like her familiar old grin, and Max half expects to hear her say _hella_. "I have to say, I didn't start this week thinking I'd get to have a cute girl in my bed."  
  
"Chloe!" This time, Max does swell with embarrassment, stopping just shy of pressing Chloe's hand back to her stomach.  
  
"What?" Chloe looks at her, suppressing something that's half-cough, half-laughter. "You have a _lot_ to learn if you think I don't get sexually frustrated and shit."  
  
There's something about the way she says it that makes relief ooze all throughout Max's body. _Still the same Chloe,_ she thinks. _In any timeline. No matter what._ She grinds her teeth into her lower lip, trying not to grin too wide and look foolish. She spreads Chloe's fingers out one by one and presses her palm flat to one side of her ribs, holding it there. Feeling a little bolder, she says, "Why don't you let me touch you, too?"  
  
Chloe's smile fades a little bit. "Why? Not like I'd get anything out of it."  
  
Max squirms on top of her, flicking her eyes down to Chloe's chest covered by the blanket. "How do you know? Maybe just being close is enough."  
  
But Chloe's expression only clouds, and Max realizes that she may have taken a misstep. "You don't want to look at my body," she says.  
  
Max is startled. "I do!" she says, immediately on the defense, horrified that Chloe might feel that way. "I _do_ , Chloe. If...if you'd let me."  
  
Chloe has fallen silent. "Max..." Max waits for her to continue, but she doesn't. Chloe seems to be waiting for Max to make a decision, and so, after a moment of thought, she does.  
  
"If you say 'stop', then we stop. Okay? Any time." She looks Chloe in the eyes, tells herself to hold her gaze and not break it. She can't grant Chloe the rest she wants so badly, but she can give her this. There's no hesitation in Max's decision. She is ready to give Chloe whatever she wants, however many pieces of herself she needs. She _owes_ her that.  
  
"...Yeah," Chloe breathes. "Okay." She looks weary, now, but she's smiling a little, and it makes Max's vision get a little blurry again. She nods, trembling, and reaches out to pull the blanket down. The orange wool pools at Chloe's hips as Max studies her. She first thing she does is reach out for the scarf wound around Chloe's neck. It comes loose easily, a puddle of silk in her hands, and she lets it slip away. Next Max pulls at the cardigan Chloe's wearing, carefully tugging it off of her shoulders. She meets Chloe's eyes, waiting for her nod, before she makes slow and deliberate work of pulling the sweater off of one arm, then the other. She's left with the task of removing Chloe's shirt, then, and as she stares at the floral pattern on it, she begins to worry; to get it off, she would have to temporarily disconnect Chloe's tracheotomy tube.  
  
But Chloe seems to read into her worry, because she gives a little nod. "Buttons," she says. "In the back."  
  
That makes perfect sense, Max thinks, because it would make her a lot easier to dress. She smiles, reaching out to slide her arms around Chloe's waist. Chloe gives a brief sound of assent as Max pulls her weight against her body, helping her lean into her heavily as she blindly gropes around Chloe's back for the buttons. Chloe's resting against her comfortably, fitting against her in a way that feels natural and right, apart from the tube that is now pressed between their chests. Max makes quick work of the buttons, and she's a little sorry when she pulls away, but it's worth it just to watch as she tugs the shirt away.  
  
This Chloe is thinner than the one she left behind, who was already slender. There's a nearly translucent quality to her skin, as if it hasn't seen the sun in years— and it probably hasn't, Max thinks. Her ribs are sharp lines cutting out of her, her stomach a concave hollow. She looks delicate, breakable. She isn't wearing any sort of bra or undershirt, which Max supposes must be for convenience rather than function or a comfort Chloe cannot feel anyway. The tube coming out of her throat now rests down her chest, across her stomach, and Max tries not to see it. But she's beautiful, and she's _familiar_ , and Max is smiling down at her.  
  
"Chloe," she starts.  
  
"Don't say something like 'you're beautiful'," Chloe says, reading her mind, but there's no bitterness in her voice. She gives a little huff. "Can't even cover myself and act all embarrassed about it. Totally undignified."  
  
"No way. You're not embarrassed," says Max affectionately, and she's thinking _There's Chloe_ , because she knows that the other Chloe would probably say the same thing with her hands on her hips, proud and eager to show off.  
  
"I will be if you don't take that bra off, Max," Chloe quips back. She's looking at her expectantly, almost impatiently. Max wonders what she would be doing right now if she had control of her hands. Would she be reaching out for her? Caressing her? Undressing her further? It makes her ache to think about what Chloe might or might not do, makes something curl up inside of her when she realizes that she won't ever be able to find out here.  
  
She reaches behind her back and unhooks the clasp of her bra, and with a roll of her shoulders, she yanks it off. Max has always been slightly self-conscious of her body— of the narrowness of her hips, the understated swell of her chest that had never seemed to get any bigger after the age of thirteen. But she feels unburdened here with Chloe, maybe because worrying about something as unimportant as what her body looks like feels like a problem from a lifetime ago. She'd give anything to go back to being that innocent, to her daily problems being nothing more than trying to fit in at school and that month's budget for instant film. Or maybe she could go further back, back into one of the photos in the album on the floor, long before any of this started, before any of it mattered.  
  
But even if she could — and she _can_ — she won't, because she can't keep running from her decisions. It's not just the limit of her power. This world, the one she tried to create for Chloe, is her responsibility.  
  
"...Well...?" Max murmurs. She leans forward carefully, her hands planted on either side of Chloe's hips, digging into the bed, knuckling the sheets. She won't cover herself when Chloe can't— and she's sure that Chloe wants to look at her, because she's staring. She wants Chloe's approval even now, even like this. Some things never change.  
  
"Pretty much what I imagined," says Chloe.  
  
"What's that supposed to mean?"  
  
Chloe's eyes flutter closed for a beat, then they open again, bright. "Put my arms around you," she says softly.  
  
Max reaches down for Chloe's hands, taking them in her own. Chloe's arms are dead weight, but they're not heavy, and it's easy to manipulate them, carefully circling them around her waist, Chloe's forearms resting on the slope of her hips. It feels and looks so natural. She has to force herself to remember that Chloe can't actually sense any of it, that there's a disconnect between her body and her brain. But she can at least _see_ it, and she looks like she's drinking it in. Max leans in further, close enough that her chest brushes against Chloe's. It's definitely a strange feeling having someone's bare skin against her own, something she's never experienced before, but it's one that she adjusts to immediately. Chloe is warm, and so is the light streaming into the room. Max forgets the tube pressed between them, forgets the hum of the machine at the bedside, forgets the stale rasp of Chloe's slow breaths, each one a reminder of her gradually increasing weakness.  
  
When she looks up into Chloe's eyes, she sees that Chloe is already looking at her. Her lips part soundlessly. She might be saying something. Max thinks it might be her name. She doesn't ask for her to repeat it; instead, she leans in and presses her mouth to Chloe's again.  
  
No other person has ever been able to live in the moment quite like Max has for the past week. Not in the tangible, literal sense she has been gifted — it feels more like _cursed_ , now — with. But she doesn't need to try to stop time to appreciate the weight of this. She doesn't need to do anything at all, because it feels like it stretches on for one long, golden hour.  
  
Eventually, though, she has to breathe, even though the careful brush of Chloe's tongue against her lower lip makes her want to stay. She pulls away, but, not wanting to stop, puts her mouth against the side of Chloe's neck instead and kisses her there, impulsively, as she catches her breath. She's surprised when Chloe gasps. It's not from discomfort, as instinct immediately warns her; there's too much warmth in it. Max runs through the collision of facts she's gathered about this timeline and remembers that Chloe can't feel anything below her neck. She didn't say anything about her neck itself.  
  
"You're sensitive here?" Max murmurs, but she doesn't wait for Chloe to reply. She kisses her again, right under the jaw. Chloe whimpers. It's the sweetest sound in the world to Max, better than any one of Chloe's wild laughs that she loves hearing so much.  
  
"Yeah— y-yeah. I can feel that. Oh," Chloe breathes.  
  
Max is thrilled to have found something that Chloe can find physical pleasure in, and so she experiments with determination, kissing her again, wetter, harder. Chloe hums softly, and Max's ears are attuned to the sound, increasing her efforts when she locates what seems to be a favored spot. She has no idea what she's doing, or if it's any good, and she has a half a thought that she's drooling all down Chloe's neck, but Chloe is sighing with wonder.  
  
"Jesus, Max—"  
  
She likes the sound of that, and she wants to hear it again; there's a force behind it that doesn't make Chloe sound as weak or as exhausted as she has been. She kisses up the shell of Chloe's ear and nuzzles into her hair before dragging her mouth to her cheek. Chloe tips her head back to expose her throat and shuts her eyes. Her breaths grow slower, shallow, and once Max realizes this, she pulls away, worried. But Chloe only opens her eyes and looks a little put out.  
  
"Why'd you stop?"  
  
"I thought—" Max starts, and then cuts herself off. She kisses Chloe on the mouth again, feeling hot all over, and says very softly, "I'll stop when you tell me to."  
  
"Let me touch you," mumbles Chloe, and Max already knows what she has to do. She reaches for one of Chloe's hands where it's resting dead against her hip and grasps onto it. Chloe watches. "Sit— sit me up a little higher?"  
  
"Huh?" Max asks hazily, blinking slow at her, not comprehending.  
  
"There's an arrow button. On the rail." Chloe gives a vague nod of her head towards it; Max flicks her eyes to the side and sees what she means. When she presses it, the whole bed moves, rumbling and grinding as the portion supporting Chloe's back rises upward. This brings her a lot closer, nearly level with Max, who's still straddling her lap. Max smiles out at her, waiting for instruction. Chloe doesn't take long to deliver. "Lower," she murmurs.  
  
Max clasps her hand and pushes it against her bare hip. Chloe's fingertips are hooked against the waistband of her white jeans. With her other hand, Max very carefully skims the button and the fly, sensing innately that this is what Chloe wants. And although this isn't the way she ever imagined it going, not with Chloe or with anyone else or for her first time, this is the way she _wants_ it to happen, now. She tugs the zipper down on her jeans and carefully works them down her hips as Chloe watches. She doesn't feel nervous. That's strange, in a way; Max always figured that she would, with this kind of thing, because it's her nature to worry and over think everything, and there seems to be so much gravity, so much importance, attached to this act. Like it's something permanent that can never be undone. Max knows that even with her power, even with the ability to reverse time, she won't be able to take this back, because this will be scratched onto her heart permanently.  
  
But being with Chloe is natural, and _right_ , and when Chloe says, "Help yourself," Max isn't even embarrassed. She warbles out a sound that might have been _okay_ at some point and sweeps closer to Chloe so that she can start kissing her neck again even as she's pressing Chloe's hand down lower to the elastic of her panties. It's a little awkward to maneuver someone else's hand like this, but she works it inside, and she jumps a little when she feels Chloe's fingertips against her pubic mound, even though Max is the one fully in control of what she's doing.  
  
She cups Chloe's hand in hers and wiggles it lower, sliding her fingertips against her slit. It's a lot easier than she thought it would be to manipulate Chloe's hand in this way, and when she rolls her hips forward and rubs into Chloe's palm, it's hard not to repeat the motion immediately and eagerly. For a moment Max forgets what she's doing on Chloe's neck as her mouth goes still.  
  
"Are you wet?" Chloe asks against her temple, and it takes Max a beat to realize that she's not just trying to tease her or be sensual. She genuinely wants to know, because she can't tell.  
  
"Y-yeah, a little," mumbles Max against her neck, and it's true; Chloe's fingers dip easily between her lips, and she can feel those fingertips come away hot and slick. She rocks into Chloe's hand again, holding it there, trying to find just the right angle to stimulate herself as she drags her teeth over Chloe's jaw. She can hear Chloe's breath rattle, trembling in her throat.  
  
Would it have been like this, with the other Chloe? Would she have laid prone and allowed Max to do as she wanted? Would she have been this patient? Would her throat have been this sensitive? Max burns to know, but she already does. She _does_. She pushes into Chloe's hand, grinding into it harder and harder, wanting to get herself off the way Chloe has encouraged her to. She finds the pulse in Chloe's neck and suckles there, wondering if it'll bruise, but she has a feeling that that will only please Chloe, that she'll be happy to have her scarf there to cover something more than her tracheotomy tube. And it's a reminder that this Chloe is _alive_ , that she deserves to be. Max kisses it fiercely as she edges towards the peak she's chasing so desperately.  
  
" _Chloe—_ "  
  
And then she's colliding with it, whimpering wetly against Chloe's throat, shaking so hard that she's not entirely sure that she hasn't turned the mechanism on the bed on accidentally. She rocks into Chloe, her hips shaking, gripping at her hand so hard that she's sure that her fingernails will leave imprints in Chloe's translucent skin. Her body aches sweetly, and it takes a while to come down. When she does, the sounds she's become used to are still there: the thrum of the ventilator, the birds outside of the window, Chloe's steady but flat breathing.  
  
The world — whoever's world it is — is still there.  
  
She pulls up and looks at Chloe, who is smiling. Max kisses her quickly on the mouth.  
  
"Shit, Max," says Chloe, looking just as tired as Max feels. "I totally got you off."  
  
_Of course,_ she thinks. Max pulls Chloe's hand free from her underwear, pursing her lips together. "Don't sound like you're going to go bragging about it." She looks at Chloe, catching her breath through her mouth, before she abruptly leans over for the tissues on the dresser, which she uses to carefully dry Chloe's fingers, feeling somewhat embarrassed.  
  
"Maybe I will. Gonna tell all my internet friends."  
  
"Then give me an alias if you do." Max tosses the tissues into the wastebasket at the side of the bed and sits back on her haunches, pulling both her panties and her jeans back up. She feels strange, light all over, as if she's just woken up from an unplanned sleep. She leans in and extracts herself from Chloe's lap to curl up next to her, draping an arm over her chest. She flings a hand out behind herself and feels out for the button she'd pressed earlier, hitting the one beneath it. The bed tilts back to its former position, and Max reaches for the thick wool blanket to pull it back up over the two of them. Chloe's head tips to the side, and her cheek rests against the top of Max's head.  
  
Max wonders what to say. She wants to tell Chloe that she loves her again. That's the way it would go in a book or a movie, at this point. Max wants to tell her that all of this is her fault, that she tried to give Chloe the world and instead took it away from her. She wants to put Chloe's hands in hers and pull her into one of those photos, back to a time when she was invincible. But it's Chloe that speaks before Max can come up with something to say.  
  
"You're not going to leave me, Max. Are you?" Chloe whispers. "Like everyone else?"  
  
That question isn't easy to answer. Not when Max knows that she has to go back and undo all of this. Maybe that's the ultimate selfish act— leaving this Chloe behind to attend to the other one.  
  
But maybe there will still be a Max in this timeline when she leaves. There was a Maxine Caulfield in this timeline before she arrived, one whose life she never lived, and maybe there will still be one after she leaves. She has to trust in that. A Max that will be there for Chloe, care for her, see her through to the very end. A Max who will make the right decisions. A Max who can keep her promise. One that can say _I won't ever leave you_ and really, truly mean it. She's sure of it. She _has_ to be. Thinking otherwise will only hurt the both of them.  
  
She takes a deep breath.  
  
"I'm not," says Max. "I'm never leaving you, Chloe. Not ever again."  
  
This Maxine Caulfield, the one in the Vortex Club, the one that seems all at once both shallower and happier than the Max she is now, is still going to be here when she leaves. She'll do the right thing. She _has_ to. Chloe is her responsibility. It doesn't matter which version of Max it is; she has to believe with her whole heart that she'll do right by her.  
  
"Good," murmurs Chloe. "I want to make lots of amazing memories with you... Until that day comes... when I'll get to keep dreaming about you."  
  
Max's throat tightens, and she wills herself not to weep again. "I'll be with you the whole time," she whispers.  
  
And she will be. There will be a Max here strong enough to take it, even as she has to be a Max strong enough to leave this all behind.  
  
Before this day is through, Max knows that she will have to stare into William's last photo again and leave the world that she has created here. She will grip that photo until she distorts the colors, makes them all bleed into one another and drain away into the ether. She will have to go back and watch William walk out of that door and out of Chloe's life for the very last time. She will return to the Chloe she knows, the one who needs her more than she ever realized before.  
  
_I'll always be there for you, Chloe,_ she thinks.  
  
But she has time to spare, and until then, she can be this Max for this Chloe.  
  
_Until I won't be._  
  
It's still very early in the morning, and Chloe's warmth and sleepiness seeps into Max, as well. She wonders if she's going to dream again of a catastrophe. About the world's end.  
  
But she doesn't dream of a storm. She doesn't dream of rain whipping her skin, of cold sinking into her bones, of standing on the precipice of disaster, of blackness coming to swallow them all. Instead, she dreams of this:  
  
She and Chloe are at the lighthouse. This Chloe has honey-blonde hair, but she's standing tall and strong, so it's impossible to tell which one she is. But maybe that doesn't matter at all, because no matter how many times Max fractures the timeline of her life, she's still _Chloe_ , and Max loves her just as fiercely. They're at the top of the tower, out on the observation deck, where Chloe is facing the sun, laughing, and she holds out her hand to Max and says, _Come here_. When Max grasps for it, the light silhouetting her grows blinding.  
  
Just that.

**Author's Note:**

> Come find me on Tumblr [here](http://mjrrgr.tumblr.com), if you'd like. 
> 
> Comments, critique, questions— all are encouraged and appreciated.


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